Saving Grace (40 page)

At length he came to a small plateau where the path forked. To his right the trail rose into the mist; to his left it descended a steep slope toward the hidden waterfall. Before heading down, Micha tried the radio, but raised nothing but static.

Halfway down the slope he came across the first sign of Gracie’s passage, a sodden swath of blue material, snagged on a rock. A little farther on he found a torn sandal, which he recognized as hers.

He picked it up. “Gracie!” he cried. The wind took his voice and flung it back at him. Micha scrambled down, crouching back on his heels in a controlled slide that took him to the very lip of the land, below which was a sheer drop of four meters to the bottom of the gorge. The wadi was particularly narrow at this point, its spring-fed waters usually contained in small pools and rivulets, closely bounded by stone walls. He stood upon the verge and gazed down in awe at a rapid, cascading stream, some two meters deep.

“Gracie!” he cried. Throwing off the hood of his slicker, he listened but heard only the rain clattering around him and the stream sucking and spitting great spumes of protest as it crashed into boulders. Then, from within the storm’s great bluster, came a faint, irregular, unnatural sound, a metallic clink. Micha sidled along the edge, following the sound to its source: a canteen caught by its strap between two massive boulders. The rushing water battered the canteen repeatedly against the rock. It looked dented but new, as well it might; he’d bought it only weeks ago.

Micha stepped back, away from the verge. He hunkered down and clapped his hands over his eyes. From the darkness, a vision arose, of Grace tumbling down the slope, grasping desperately at rocks and ground and thorny bushes, then sailing over the edge and into the rocky ravine.

The fall alone wouldn’t have killed her, but it might have immobilized her, pinning her down helplessly as the waters rose and rose.

He crawled back to the verge and peered over. “Gracie!” he shouted. The wind laughed back at him. “Gracie!” he cried, but his voice sank like a stone in water. Yet a third time he called her name, so hopeless of response that, when it came, he doubted his ears. It wasn’t until the second answering cry that he jumped up and looked around.

He saw no one. A voice had spoken, but no one was near. A shiver of primordial awe ran through him:
Who calls my name in the wilderness?
But as he turned back to the gorge, a hail of pebbles rained down from above. He spun around in time to see first an arm, then a disheveled head emerge from a crevice in the hillside, twenty meters above him. The arm waved vigorously, and Gracie cried out to him.

Later, when he thought of this time, he could never remember crossing the distance that separated them. He remembered hearing her voice, seeing her; then they were huddled inside her tiny cave and she had thrown her arms around his neck and he was hugging her.

Gracie recovered first and pulled away. “Sorry I pounced.”

“Pounce away.”

She laughed. “I never thought I’d be so glad to see you.”

“Likewise.” Micha took a thermal blanket from his knapsack and wrapped it around her shoulders. She was shivering and her skin was hot to the touch; but her eyes were focused and clear. “Are you hurt?”

“My ankle.”
 

Her right ankle was tightly bound in a wet bandage that turned out, as he unwound it, to be a bra. For the life of him he couldn’t help replaying their embrace, reassessing what he’d felt under her damp shirt. Unwrapped, the ankle was puffy and blue, but didn’t seem to be broken. Assuming a dispassion he didn’t in the least feel, he told her to lie down, then checked her over. The sole of her left foot was mottled with small bruises and cuts, probably from clambering barefoot on the rocks; the right was unscathed, indicating that she’d put no weight on it. There were dark bruises along her left side; when he probed them, she winced. Micha added a possible broken rib to his inventory of injuries. When he was finished, he wrapped her in the blanket.

“How the hell did you get out?” he said.

“Climbed out.”

“On one leg? Bravo, Gracie.”

She shrugged. “The water was rising. I had no choice.”

“Why didn’t you answer sooner? Didn’t you hear me calling?”

“I’d fallen asleep. When I heard you call, I thought I was dreaming.”
 

“When I saw your canteen, I thought...” He didn’t say what he thought.

“The strap got caught and wouldn’t come loose, and finally I thought I’d better leave it and get higher. All the animals were gone by then.”

“The animals?” he said, wondering if he’d overlooked a head injury.

“They came to drink in the morning, the ibex and those furry little mammals. I was glad to see them; till then I’d had only mosquitoes for company. Then the rain started, and they ran away up the hillside. After a while, something amazing happened. Snakes and crabs crawled out of the water and from under rocks, and they started slithering up the slopes. It was raining hard by then, and I got the feeling they knew something I didn’t. So I decided to climb out.”

“You decided to climb out,” he echoed.

She gave him a silencing look.

Micha poured hot coffee with milk into the cap of his thermos and supported Grace with a strong arm as she drank. He gave her some biscuits and dates; she wolfed them down and asked for more. Afterward she leaned against him comfortably, not saying anything. He put his arm around her. Micha could have stayed in that cave forever, but he knew the heat radiating from her body wasn’t passion, but fever.

“I have to leave you for a little while.”

Gracie sat up in alarm. “Why?”

“I’ve got to get far enough out to radio for help. Then I’ll come back. It won’t take long.”

“I can walk out, if you help.”

“And do more damage to that ankle? No—we’ll lay on some transport for you.”
 

Gracie knew people were waiting, worrying about her, so she said, “Go ahead.” But as Micha crawled toward the cave’s opening, she panicked. “Wait, please. Don’t leave me alone yet.”

He looked out at the slashing rain. There would be no rescue till the weather cleared. He came back and sat close beside her.
 

“It’s funny,” she said. “Somehow I knew it would be you who came for me.”

He turned to her with burning eyes. “And did you know why?”

“Fear of Tamar?”

He laughed. And then somehow it happened that he was kissing her. He kept waiting for her to push him away, but she didn’t. After a moment of what felt like astonishment, her lips parted under his and she kissed him back hard. She tasted of dates and honey. The kiss felt like hello and goodbye all at the same time.
 

Micha wrapped his arms around her, and her body melted into his. The blanket fell off her shoulders. She was shivering, though her skin was hot to the touch.
Be careful,
he heard his mother say, but he didn’t need her to tell him. He let go of Gracie and backed away as far as he could in the tiny crevice.
 

“Regrets already?” Gracie asked; then, when he didn’t answer: “Don’t worry, I get it. You rescued me, and now here we are, just the two of us, marooned in a cave like the last two people on earth.
 
It’s situational.”

“You think?”

“What else could it be?”

“Could be love,” he said. “Crazy, stupid love.”

A moment passed while they looked into each other’s eyes. Neither one was laughing now. A blush spread over Gracie’s pale face.
 

“I guess we’ll never know,” she said. “I’m needed at home.”

“For now,” Micha said.

29

IT’S JUST LIKE FALLING ASLEEP,” the anesthesiologist said. “You’ll feel no pain. When you wake up, it will all be over.”

“To sleep, perchance to dream, ah, there’s the rub,” Lily said almost gaily, the sedative having had that effect.

“Do you have any questions?”

“Where’s my daughter?”

“On her way,” Jonathan said, taking her hand. The doctor nodded to him and slipped out of the room.

“I won’t go till I’ve seen Gracie.”

“Paul called. The plane landed, he’s got her, and they’re on their way.”

“She’ll be here,
tochter.
Don’t worry about Gracie,” Clara said. She sat on the far side of the bed, half-hidden behind an enormous spray of late-blooming salt-spray roses. Jonathan, unable to sleep the night before, had driven all the way out to East Hampton and back to bring Lily roses from her own garden. Their sweet, wandering scent filled the room, displacing the antiseptic odor.

The door opened and Gracie rushed in, casting aside a crutch as she knelt at the bedside. She burst into tears of relief. “I was so afraid I’d miss you.”

Lily laid her hand on Gracie’s dark head. “Thank you,” she said fervently to Paul, as if he had personally plucked Grace from the wilderness.

He shut the door. “No big deal.”

Lily said, “Are you all right, darling? Your poor ankle.”

“I’m fine, forget about me. I’m so sorry for the worry, the trouble I caused.”

“Your father had the worry. They didn’t tell me till you were found.”

Gracie looked up. “Dad....”

Jonathan reached down and helped her to her feet. He put his arms around her and she laid her head against his chest. She was thinner, her body harder than the last time he’d embraced her. Paul, seeing the tears in his father’s eyes, turned away in disgust. Gracie, his Teflon sister: was there nothing she could do to lose their love?

“What a naughty girl,” Clara said, “ worrying us all to death.” Jonathan growled and she subsided. “Thanks God, is all I got to say.”

A short while later, an orderly came with a gurney to take Lily to surgery. Paul kissed her and moved away to the window. Gracie said, “I love you, Mommy.”

“I know, darling. I love you, too.”

Jonathan walked beside the gurney, holding Lily’s hand. They rode up in the elevator and passed through a labyrinth of corridors until they came to a pair of green swinging doors. “This is where we leave you,” the orderly said, stepping away.

Jonathan bent and kissed her on the lips. He couldn’t speak.

“Don’t worry, love,” Lily said.

The orderly swung her around and backed through the green doors. Dr. Barrows was waiting on the other side. He leaned over the gurney, pulled down his mask, smiled. “Hello, Lily. How’re you feeling?”

“Scared.”

“Don’t be. With Tamar breathing down my neck I wouldn’t dare be less than perfect.”

Lily felt woozy, uninhibited. “Don’t take out my mother,” she pleaded.

“You’re in the best hands,” said a nurse with kind eyes.

They wheeled her into the operating room and asked her to slide onto the table. Lily looked up at the lights, then around. The room was full of people. In the corner stood a table full of terrible-looking instruments. Her heart began to pound. A masked man loomed from behind. She didn’t recognize the upside-down face until it spoke. “Did your daughter make it back in time?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Good. What’s your favorite flavor, Lily?”

“Strawberry.”

“Strawberry it is.” He placed a mask over her face.

It was nothing like falling asleep. There was no transition. She was; then she was not.

* * *

Gracie’s return from the wilderness was a sign to Jonathan that all was not lost. His pending trial had faded to insignificance. His priorities were finally clear. They could confiscate his property, they could incarcerate his body; but there were things, infinitely more precious, they could never touch.

In the surgical waiting room, Jonathan sat on a sofa between his children, holding their hands and watching the clock. Clara, exhausted, fell asleep in an armchair. She slept, snoring lightly, for three hours. Then Dr. Barrows came, still in his greens.

He didn’t smile. “She’s out of surgery and resting comfortably.”

Jonathan was already on his feet. “Can we see her?”

“Not yet, no. She’s still in recovery. Let’s go to my office and chat.”
 

The invitation was meant for Jonathan alone, but Gracie jumped up. “I’m coming, too.” She intercepted a warning look from the doctor to her father. “Please, Dad. No more secrets.”

Jonathan said, “No more secrets. Paul, do you want to come?”

“I’ll stay with Grandma.”

Barrows led them down the hall to a small office. Gracie leaned her cane against his desk and sat beside her father.

“We got the preliminary path report,” Barrows said. “It’s not good news.”
 

Jonathan had prepared for this in his imagination. It was important to bear up, to be calm, rational, in control, a pillar of strength to his family. He had practiced saying the word “malignant” as if it were an ordinary word, like “lamp” or “mayonnaise.”
 
He opened his mouth. An awful sound came out, a kind of bleat.